Room, meet elephant

 The images keeps coming back to you, two days later. Or maybe just to me.

Tua Tagovailoa lying on the ground, his hands frozen into claws.

The ten interminable minutes it took medical staff to get him on a stretcher, because they were being very, very careful.

The stretcher rolling off the field there in Cincinnati, as America watched in (one would hope) horror.

OK. So maybe that was just me, too.

But go back four days, and you'll see much the same scenario in Miami. You'll see Tua's head bounce off the turf, and then see him stagger like a drunk, falling back to his knees, and see him shake-shake-shaking his head ... and, hey, who you gonna believe, the Dolphins or your lying eyes?

Because the Dolphins, and Tua, say the problem was his back, and that he passed the concussion tests by the "independent neurologist". And yet, none of it erases the visual evidence.

Straight skinny, the Dolphins sent a concussed player back onto the field, because he wanted to be there and because they needed him there. And four days later he was concussed again. 

And this is where the elephant enters the room.

Why was he playing again four days later?

Because the Dolphins were playing again four days later.

Two concussions four days apart shouldn't have happened, frankly, because no one should be playing professional football four days apart. That's more true in 2022 than it's ever been, with men the size of Volvos delivering foot-pounds of force unheard of 40, 30, maybe even 20 years ago.

But the NFL compels two teams to play football on Thursday night now, and has for some time, because the league poobahs understand theirs is a product for which its consumers have an insatiable appetite. So now the abomination that is Thursday Night Football airs on Amazon Prime, which no doubt paid good money for it. And the league adds to its already considerable stash. And player safety?

Player safety is just a platitude wrapped in a PR campaign.

Oh, there are rules now about helmet-to-helmet hits and targeting, and a "concussion protocol." But it's all a neat bit of gloss that obscures the fact the league doesn't really give a damn about player safety. If it did, there would be no Thursday Night Football.

If it did, Tua Tagovailoa wouldn't have been concussed twice in four days.

But the Dolphins needed him back out there on Sunday, and also Thursday. And Tua, of course, wanted to be back out there, as players always will. And, let's face it, the league wanted him back out there, because Dolphins-Bills was one of their marquee games last Sunday, and Thursday Night Football is a marquee event, too.

Now the league will likely investigate all of this, because PLAYER SAFETY. Someone will likely catch hell. And the irony will sail over the league's head like a freaking pterodactyl. 

Because the league itself ought to catch hell, too.